This is a place for me to share some of my work. On this site you will find many examples of micro lessons. Many of them will take the form of 1 to 10 minutes video clips or short to the point articles. I believe that micro lessons could be a powerful tool that we can use with students. I hope that you enjoy this Blog site. This site will discuss educational technology as a tool for student learning. Site Publisher Fred Sharpsteen
email contact sharpstf@gmail.com

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Please join your colleagues at the 2015 State Curriculum and Technology Directors' Conference on August 12. The morning will start with a continental breakfast and keynotes from MDE leadership including Vanessa Keesler and, we hope, the new State Superintendent. Three breakout sessions (and lunch) will round out the day.

Breakout session topics will include

State Technology Planning

District and school technology and school improvement planning process

Saturday, June 20, 2015

Established in 1998, the MSBO Voluntary Certification Program supports
the ongoing professional development of school business officials. The
program is a mark of distinction that reflects professional achievement
and demonstrates a person’s dedication to his/her profession.
This voluntary certification program is sponsored by Michigan School Business
Officials (MSBO) in cooperation with Michigan Association for Computer Users
in Learning (MACUL) and Michigan Association for Educational Data Systems
(MAEDS).

Are you trying to develop some new classroom instruction visually enriched learning this summer but can't find any good content. Here is a good selection of tools to help you.
Check out this link. Click Herehttp://www.hippocampus.org/

Ensuring the Quality of Digital Content for Learning Webinar
This webinar shared strategies for ensuring the quality of digital content, including exploring the specific quality-control challenges and opportunities associated with open educational resources. The content of the webinar stemed from SETDA's latest digital content policy brief, Ensuring the Quality of Digital Content for Learning.

SETDA Shares State Digital Learning Exemplars and best practices. Resources available to all of via the SETDA website that reflect many of the same topics that national and state organization are joining efforts around to support our schools.

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Chromebook sales in 2015 will increase 27 percent over 2014 shipments to hit 7.3 million, according to a new forecast from market research firm Gartner.

Many of those shipments are likely to be for use in education, which represented nearly three quarters of Chromebook sales in 2014.

"Since the first model launched in mid-2011, Google's Chromebook has seen success mainly in the education segment across all regions," said Isabelle Durand, principal analyst at Gartner, in a prepared statement. "In 2014, the education sector purchased 72 percent of Chromebooks in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), 69 percent in Asia/Pacific, and 60 percent in the United States."

In the U.S., that 60 percent share going to education is more than half again the 38.6 percent of Chromebooks sold to consumers and dwarfs the 1.1 percent share of the devices sold to non-education enterprises. That small percentage of devices is in spite of efforts by Google to increase business demand with improved offline access and functions for the netbooks.

"Chromebook is a device that can be considered by SMBs (small and midsize businesses) or new startup companies that do not have the resources to invest too much in IT infrastructure," added Durand. "Chromebooks will become a valid device choice for employees as enterprises seek to provide simple, secure, low-cost and easy-to-manage access to new web applications and legacy systems, unless a specific application forces a Windows decision."

Most sales of the devices, 84 percent, were to North America in 2014, and that will continue throughout this year and next, according to Gartner, with just more than 6 million shipments to the region predicted for this year and nearly 6.2 million in 2015.

EMEA will continue to account for the bulk of the remainder, increasing purchases of the devices from about 620,000 in 2014 to 866,000 this year and approximately 1.28 million in 2016.

"After Samsung's decision to exit the European Chromebook market and focus on tablets, Acer took the lead to become the number 1 worldwide Chromebook vendor in 2014," according to a news release. "Acer sold more than 2 million units in 2014. Samsung held the number 2 position with 1.7 million units sold in 2014 and HP, a late entrant to the market, was ranked number 3, with 1 million units, thanks to its strong connection with education partners."

About the Author

Joshua Bolkan is the multimedia editor for Campus Technology and THE Journal. He can be reached at jbolkan@1105media.com.